How do I set up Jira automation rules on requiring time logs when other automations are in place?

Question

Hi @Jack Brickey

Thanks for responding to the old question... a good idea to post a new question so here it is....

My Original Issue/Question

I have a similar issue however, we have automation in place that, when the linked development project ticket status updates, the automation rule will update our service desk tickets to the matching status unless they are in a number of specific statuses ("In Progress" being one of them).

I originally set up my workflow to allow "All" statuses to transition into our dev statuses (unless they are in a handful of specific statuses like in progress) and added another transition with a validator, when going from "In Progress" to any of the development statuses, it would require the log work screen to be completed, thinking that since the transition only applied to the tickets if they are "In Progress," it wouldn't affect the other transition rule... This worked perfectly when manually changing statuses...However, once I added the automation to update a service desk ticket status when the development project ticket status changed, my workflow rules caused that automation to fail.

Is there any way I can require the log work screen ONLY when a ticket is in In Progress and moves to any status without breaking my workflow or the automation I need the system to perform? Perhaps a post function or? I know there is a "New Action" automation to log work but it makes me set a time value that gets applied to the ticket. I need our agents to be able to document the actual time they spend on a ticket and somehow I would like it to be a required screen when they are setting the ticket status when leaving "In Progress," which is the last thing they do when leaving a ticket.

Any help would be appreciated! :)

Sara

Your follow up question/suggestion:

how about creating another transition specifically for Automation without the Validator? You could restrict the transition to the automation 'user'.

My follow up question:

I already have 2 transitions. One has the validator on it and the "Allow All" transition doesn't have a validator. Would it work if on the Allow All transition I restrict the transition to the automation user (which I believe would be the actor?)?

Thanks for your help!!

Sara

Sara Nicholson_9gxoco · Answer

So to put a bow on this :)

1. For service desk only statues I added a validator to require a comment that uses our log work screen. So, when agents click on one of those statuses in the workflow dropdown, the log work screen pops up before moving the ticket to the new status.

2. For all shared statuses (between dev and service desk) the validator to require a comment would break the behind-the-scenes automation that said if a dev status changes to "this" then change the service desk status to "this" also. The automation would break because there was no one to add the required comment. So, I created a "Log Work" status so that when the team wants to move the service desk ticket to a shared status to match the dev ticket, they click on the transition "Stop Progress" which causes the Log Work screen to appear. Once they log their work and the ticket is in the "log work" status they then have the ability to click on the workflow dropdown and all shared dev ticket statuses are available...they select the one they want and the ticket moves to that status.

It's not ideal but it works... I have a feeling I could have actually accomplished this by checking the override workflow rules on the automation rules that transition the tickets to match the dev ticket status and I may test it out to see.... but in case anyone else is looking for something like this I wanted to share how I was able to get around the validator issue I was having.

Thanks for all your help!

Sara

Jack Brickey · Answer

Hi @Sara Nicholson , thanks for reposting and thanks for the very detailed and organized post. I believe it would at least that's where I would start. Should be easy enough to test. The main thing you're aiming at here is a manual transmission with a field required validator and then the other transition is a user restricted transition validator.